


Warrior's Fortune

by draculard



Category: Star Wars: Thrawn Series - Timothy Zahn (2017)
Genre: Darth Vader whomst? He Is Not In This Story, Do Chiss purr? Yes but with rules, Gen, Homesick Thrawn, Hopefully I've assembled them into a somewhat respectable format, Mostly fluff with slight hurt/comfort, This is really just a lot of Chiss headcanons, ozyly-esehembo, spoilers for Thrawn Alliances
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2020-05-12 06:52:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19223902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/draculard/pseuds/draculard
Summary: The seven Chiss girls are aboard the Chimaera for only two days, and during that time, Grand Admiral Thrawn manages to get attached.





	Warrior's Fortune

It wasn’t a sight Faro saw often; even enlisted men stuck strictly to the rules of comportment when they were in uniform. One did not sit down in an Imperial uniform unless given express permission; one certainly didn’t lean unprofessionally against bulkheads, or sit on the bunks, or—

Or sit cross-legged on the bridge floor.

As Grand Admiral Thrawn was currently doing, in his formerly-pristine white uniform.

Faro turned away from her console briefly, letting her eyes sweep over Thrawn and his new horde of poorly-dressed Chiss children in what she hoped was a subtle glance. The seven Chiss girls stood before Thrawn, only one of them tall enough to meet Thrawn’s eyes, even though she was standing and he was sitting.

The Grand Admiral spoke to them softly. His words had the sibilant, unfamiliar aspirations of Cheunh, but his tone was light and airy — and eerily reminiscent, Faro realized, of the way her own father talked to his youngest nieces and nephews.

She turned back for another look. The five girls they’d rescued earlier were a bit more at ease, it seemed, than the two new ones. Assuming Chiss aged the same way humans did, they all looked to be under ten, with one barely out of infancy.

Thrawn said something to them in Cheunh and the girls lined up silently, puffing their chests out with their arms straight down at their sides, almost like a division of recruits standing ready for inspection. Faro glanced at Thrawn quickly, rankling a little, and found him wearing a gentle smile. Then she saw that the girls were smiling back at him, and talking with the unfettered ease of happy children, and her brief misgivings faded away.

She watched as he looked over the first two girls in the line before saying something to them softly. Each girl sat down, one of them scooting across the tiled floor to tuck herself unobtrusively against Thrawn’s side while he continued his inspection; Thrawn made no move to reprimand her, and when Faro looked out over the bridge, she found most of the officers had joined her in openly staring. The other girl went back and forth between watching Thrawn’s inspection and performing one of her own on him; evidently she found his hair unsatisfactory and set to fixing it, thoroughly ruining his uniform-standard combing job. Thrawn paid no attention to her ministrations, though Faro thought she heard his voice falter briefly when a lock of hair came loose and fell over his forehead.

Deftly, and keeping a running monologue in Cheunh, Thrawn undid the buttons on the tallest girl’s old, shabby coat. He redid them again swiftly, this time making sure each button found the correct slot so that the coat hung properly on her shoulders, instantly doing away with the lopsidedness which Faro had earlier noted and assumed to be simple shoddy tailoring. From his tone, Faro guessed he was teaching the girl to count her buttons so she would know when they were done incorrectly — it was the same tone he used with his own officers over minor mistakes.

He looked the rest of the girls over quickly, dismissing each one until he got to the last and littlest Chiss girl. Thrawn motioned for her to sit down, saying something in Cheunh that made her and all the older girls laugh.

Faro craned her neck, struggling to see around Thrawn’s back (and the six girls who had taken up positions on either side of him). She could just barely see Thrawn’s fingers on the little girl’s shoelaces, tying them with an agonizing slowness as he spoke, no doubt running her through the steps. When he was finished, he motioned toward her other, untied shoe, and the little girl tackled it herself while Thrawn watched, helping her whenever she hesitated.

Some of the Chiss girls were watching intently. Others were combing their hair with their fingers, checking each other over for tangles while Thrawn wasn’t looking. By now, all of them — even the two newest rescues — were relaxed, smiling and talking quietly amongst themselves.

The littlest girl finished tying her shoe and sat still while Thrawn leaned forward, tightening the knot for her. When he was done, she held out her right arm to him, beaming, and Thrawn gave her a dazzling smile as he grasped her arm gently, just below the elbow, with his own right hand. The girl’s tiny fingers wrapped around his arm in return, as much as they could.

A Chiss handshake, Faro supposed. Or maybe something closer to a hug, since she couldn’t imagine a child that young offering anyone a handshake.

Thrawn said something to the girls, his tone more brisk now, and they each scrambled to their feet, hurrying around in front of him. He held out his hands to them, palm-down, and the girls closed around him, giggling as they each found a part of his arms to hold onto. As Faro watched, the girls pulled back with all their might, digging their heels into the floor until Thrawn, unmoved by their efforts, caved in and climbed gracefully to his feet.

This, too, was more than familiar to Faro. Her favorite uncle had pulled this trick on to her and her siblings when they were children — he’d ask for help standing, then stay still, immovable and amused, while the kids tried their hardest to tug him to his feet before he finally acquiesced and stood on his own. It was a silly game, but it had always amused Faro when she was little, and she could tell it amused the Chiss children as well.

They looked like _real_ children now, she realized — less disheveled and certainly less cowed, each of them standing around Thrawn with wide grins on their faces. Their red eyes were glowing brighter than before; she wondered if the earlier dimness had been due to a lack of energy, or if it was a defense mechanism she’d never had cause to see on Thrawn himself. It was reasonable, she supposed, that Chiss eyes would dim when they were in danger, perhaps to prevent predators from finding them in the dark.

And suddenly the Grand Admiral stood before her, the planes of his face softer than she’d seen in weeks.

“You have the bridge, Commodore,” he said in Basic. Faro blinked, eyes flickering briefly down to the seven girls. Thrawn’s hands were clasped behind his back, but at least five of the girls held onto his sleeves, staring wonderingly up at Faro.

“Understood, sir,” Faro said. Behind Thrawn’s back, the rest of the bridge went back to work, though she caught a few officers sneaking glances their way.

“I’ll be available over comlink,” said Thrawn; he shook one of his hands free with some difficulty and brushed back the stray lock of hair on his forehead. At his side, several of the girls frowned in disapproval but all of them stayed silent, quickly recapturing his hand when he lowered it back to his side.

“They seem attached to you, sir,” Faro said, trying not to smile. If possible, Thrawn’s face softened even further.

“Yes,” he said, and then hesitated, lowering his voice a bit so the other officers couldn’t hear. “They were pleased to see another Chiss aboard.”

Thrawn, barred from his home planet for upwards of twenty years first by exile and then by Imperial service, was much more pleased to see _them_ , Faro suspected. His strange coolness toward the children had evaporated quickly enough, once Vader was gone.

He led the Chiss girls across the bridge, heading either for their new, temporary quarters or for the mess hall, Faro supposed. A larger room had been set up for them after the rescue, with extra beds to accommodate the new girls. They wouldn’t be spending much time onboard before Thrawn’s contact from Csilla came to collect them — only another day or two — but each of the officers had agreed it would be best not to separate them after their traumatic kidnapping by the Grysk.

And certainly, Faro mused, it was good for them to have a Chiss adult there — someone who spoke their language and knew their customs, someone who looked like them and could reassure them when they were frightened. The girls had changed so quickly after only a few minutes with Thrawn, their nervous posture replaced by a confident, fluid grace which seemed natural to all Chiss.

And Thrawn had smiled so easily with them, the first people he’d met in the past twenty years who spoke his native tongue, who shared his cultural background and didn’t look twice at his blue skin or glowing red eyes.

Faro suspected she’d be doing most of the command duties while the children were onboard.

* * *

By the time Faro’s bridge shift ended, it was late into the night cycle, and she hadn’t heard from either Thrawn or his seven Chiss cadets since they left the bridge hours earlier. The route to her quarters took her past the observation deck, where Thrawn could sometimes be found looking out at the stars, but a cursory glance through the doorway revealed an empty room.

Frowning, though not particularly worried, Faro changed direction, putting herself on the path toward Thrawn’s command room. Along the way, she switched her comlink to his private channel and held it to her mouth as she walked.

“Commodore Karyn Faro to Grand Admiral Thrawn,” she said. “Final orders for the night, sir?”

There was no response; she turned the corner to Thrawn’s command room and cracked the door open, not bothering to knock. Like the observation deck it was empty, with the lights completely dimmed.

Possibly, he was sleeping, though she’d never caught him sleeping before. But most likely, he was still preoccupied with the rescued children, either ignoring her check-in or unable to answer it with seven young children demanding his attention. Sighing, Faro changed direction once again, this time heading for the quarters set up for the girls.

She could feel weariness pulling at her as she made her way down the passageways; it was late enough that she didn’t pass a single solitary stormtrooper or stray petty officer along the way. Outside the girls’ quarters, she paused, eyes itching from fatigue, and rapped lightly on the door.

There was no response from within. With another, deeper sigh, Faro keyed open the door, taking comfort in a brief, improbable fantasy that Thrawn would at least feel guilty for not answering his comlink.

The door slid open; Faro took one step into the room and then froze as her brain caught up with her eyes. She was still standing there, stock-still, when the door closed behind her with a light, pneumatic hiss.

There were seven small fold-up beds in the room last she checked, but now each one was folded and neatly stacked against the wall. The thin mattresses had been arranged directly next to each other on the cool, tiled floor, with no gaps between them so as to form one giant bed. With the blankets arranged in a fluffed-up circle around the edge of this new, larger mattress, Faro was tempted to call it a nest.

The Chiss girls were asleep in the center, curled up against each other for warmth, with arms and legs tangled in a haphazard way that reminded Faro of Fengill pups. Beneath them all, acting as a second, thicker mattress, was Grand Admiral Thrawn, his head tipped back in sleep, one arm wrapped loosely and protectively around the smallest girl. He was still dressed in his formerly-pristine, formerly-pressed white uniform.

None of them stirred as Faro entered the room. There was a strange, soft sound coming from each of the girls, rising and falling in step with their breath — Faro couldn’t be sure whether to define it as a snore (though quieter than most humans snored) or a purr (though she’d never heard of near-humans who purred). It was underlaid by a minutely deeper, identical sound coming from Thrawn.  

“Okay, then,” Faro muttered. Any irritation she might have felt at Thrawn for not answering his comlink faded away as she stepped closer to the nest and got a better glance at his face. She’d often admired the way he could keep his expression carefully neutral during the heat of battle or when things went wrong in the everyday operation of the ship, but seeing him asleep for the very first time, she realized there had always been a certain amount of tension in his face, a stiffness in even his most relaxed posture that was now gone.

He _was_ purring, she decided. She started to kneel down near the edge of the nest and then changed her mind, stepping back and activating the camera on her datapad. For a few seconds, she recorded the scene before her, not yet sure if the resulting holo would be best used as blackmail or as her own personal morale booster. All she knew was she _definitely_ wanted this on file.

Finally, Faro stopped the recording and tucked her datapad under her arm. She knelt on the tile floor and reached over the sleeping children to put a hand on Thrawn’s shoulder, giving him a gentle shake.

He didn’t so much as twitch. _Heavy sleeper,_ Faro thought with some amusement. She abandoned her efforts at the shoulder, instead poking him somewhat less gently in the face. Abruptly, the deeper note of Thrawn’s purring cut off, and his eyes fluttered open, just a bit too slow to catch Faro pulling her fingers away.

“It’s still four hours till day cycle begins, sir,” Faro said before he could ask. He squeezed his eyes shut, mentally shaking away the lingering sleep; when he opened them again, they looked as sharp as they ever did. “I contacted you over comlink to check for final orders,” Faro continued, “but you didn’t answer.”

“Ah,” said Thrawn, sounding perhaps a little chagrined. His hand twitched, fingers flexing. “It’s...underneath me. Somewhere.”

Pinned to his belt, Faro guessed, and currently buried by the sleeping children. She noted the thick accent that had coated his first few words, though it’d disappeared by the time he hit the word ‘somewhere,’ replaced by the cultured accent he must have copied from someone in the Imperial Court.

“Understood, sir,” she said. “No worries. I hope I didn’t interrupt your meditation?”

A wry smile twisted Thrawn’s lips at her diplomatic choice of words. Emboldened by this, Faro swept her eyes over the Chiss girls, who were all still fast asleep and still purring.

“Do all Chiss make that sound, sir?” she asked. Thrawn followed her gaze without turning his head; he seemed reluctant to move even a little, lest he wake them.

“Most do,” he said. “But only when sleeping.”

“Including you, sir?” Faro asked, just to see what he’d say. He met her gaze, looking both curious and a little embarrassed.

“Do I?” he asked.

“Just a little, sir,” said Faro politely. “They wouldn’t let you leave, I take it?”

Thrawn didn’t answer for a moment, studying her face instead — perhaps searching for a hint of militaristic reprove. Though he hadn’t been on-duty at the time, of course, and there was no law to dictate that a Grand Admiral couldn’t build a nest out of seven flimsy mattresses and fall asleep wherever he wanted in his off-time.

“They might have, if I’d pressed the issue,” Thrawn admitted. “But it would have been an unpleasant end to the day for all of us.”

Translation: Grand Admiral Thrawn hadn’t wanted to deal with seven crying children. Though perhaps that was an ungenerous translation for Faro to make — Thrawn was certainly taking the children’s recent trauma into account, and it would surely upset them more than an untraumatized child, at this point, to be rudely separated from their only friend aboard an unfamiliar ship.

She glanced over the children again, their faces relaxed and peaceful, two of them unashamedly drooling on Thrawn’s uniform. To his credit, he didn’t seem to notice or care. She tried to imagine what they would be like right now if Thrawn hadn’t made time to talk to them, remembered how silent and fearful they’d been directly after their rescue.

“Is this how all Chiss sleep, sir?” Faro asked, gesturing vaguely at the children.

“Not the adults, no,” Thrawn said, voice soft. “Children commonly sleep on the floor, in bedrolls or on mattress pads. Siblings and cousins sleep together like this.”

“And that ritual the eight of you performed earlier, on the bridge?” asked Faro. A shadow of a smile passed over Thrawn’s face.

“Most people wouldn’t recognize that as a ritual, relaxed as it was,” he said. “Personal presentation is important among the Chiss. As the only adult, it was my responsibility to inspect them and correct any mistakes.”

“And they returned the favor, of course, sir,” Faro noted, eyeing his even-messier-than-before hair.

“It’s expected of them,” Thrawn said, with what might have been a good-natured grimace. He couldn’t extricate either of his hands to fix his hair, though he looked sorely tempted to. Faro smiled a little.

“Will you stay with them till morning, sir?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Thrawn, with little hesitation, “I expect I shall.”

“Then I’ll leave you to it, sir.” It was bad form, perhaps, for Faro to dismiss herself like this — but it was clear from his uncharacteristic willingness to talk about Chiss culture that despite his alertness, Thrawn was still half-asleep. She suspected he wouldn’t mind, and sure enough, he only inclined his head in acknowledgment as she stood and headed for the door.

“You’ll delete the holo, of course, Commodore,” Thrawn said softly as she hit the latch. There was no sound of reproach in his voice; Faro looked over his shoulder and found him staring at her from the nest, his eyes half-closed but knowing.

“You were awake?” Faro asked, shame-faced.

“Not at all,” said Thrawn. “I could see the heat signature from the datapad on your hands when I awoke, and your grip on it tightened when you asked about the—” He hesitated, perhaps not trusting the Basic word she’d provided for him, perhaps just unwilling to say it. “—purring.”

He could _see_ the heat signature on her hands? Faro’s gaze lingered on his glowing red eyes, for the first time wondering exactly how Thrawn’s vision differed from hers.

“I’ll delete it, sir,” she said, with no small amount of regret.

She should’ve figured he’d know.

* * *

She didn’t see the Grand Admiral again until the start of her shift the next day; when she arrived on the bridge he was already there, poised with his usual casual confidence before the navport. His uniform, in sharp contrast to last night, was perfectly pressed and dazzling white again. The Chiss children stood around him, listening raptly as he spoke to the navigational officers, though they still didn’t know a word of Basic.

When Thrawn moved away from the navport, the girls were close behind him, not eager to get left behind. They all seemed to be mimicking his posture, keeping their shoulders squared and their hands folded behind their backs, though unlike Thrawn, they were all a little prone to tripping over their own feet. Faro tried not to smile too obviously at the sight.

Once away from the other officers, Thrawn finally acknowledged the girls, speaking to them genially in Cheunh. It became a pleasant sort of background noise for Faro as she looked over last shift’s reports; she could hear the girls asking rapid questions, struggling not to talk over one another and barely giving Thrawn the time to respond.

She glanced over and caught Thrawn pointing to the tallest girl’s long hair as he spoke. He gestured to his own shoulders and abruptly the girls’ expressions changed; as one, they let out a sound of disgust and horror. She could tell by his tone that Thrawn was trying to reprimand them, but the severe expression on his face was somehow entirely unconvincing; she suspected he was trying hard not to smile.

Faro made her way over to them; the girls were laughing amongst themselves as one of them pretended to gag. They didn’t notice her sidling up to Thrawn’s side.

“You seem to have offended them, sir,” said Faro neutrally. Thrawn exhaled slowly, a thoughtful expression on his face.

“I told them I had long, beautiful hair like theirs once,” he said. Faro felt her face spasm; she managed, just barely, to keep any trace of amusement off her face.

Thrawn seemed to notice, anyway.

“Yes, they found it strange as well,” he said drily. “I suppose long hair is out of fashion for Chiss boys their age.”

Faro snorted softly, trying and failing to imagine the Grand Admiral with long hair. She had a horrible mental image of pencil-straight hair down to his shoulders, parted in the middle, and tried not to shudder. The children, still giggling, seemed to share in her current turmoil.

She was still trying to process it when one of the girls stepped forward, tugging at Thrawn’s sleeve.

“ _Mitth’raw’nuruodo_ ,” she said, her tone solemn. The rest of her words were too quick and too unfamiliar for Faro to pick them out. She kept her face blank and her posture professional while the girl and Thrawn had what sounded like a more-or-less serious conversation. In the middle of the girl’s next sentence, Thrawn turned his head minutely to look at Faro; his eyes flickered toward her station and back to her.

Never let it be said that Karyn Faro can’t take a hint. She walked away from them briskly; whatever this new conversation was about, it wasn’t likely she wanted to know, anyway.

* * *

“Mitth’raw’nuruodo,” the girl said solemnly in Cheunh, “I don’t mind if you had long hair once. I still like you.”

“Thank you,” Thrawn said, matching her solemn tone as best he could. “That’s very grown-up of you.”

“And I don’t think you would look ugly like the human lady does,” the girl said. “I just think you would look like a girl.”

Thrawn sneaked a quick glance at Faro, who was doing an admirable impression of a blank face, for a human. He could still make out the tell-tale twitch of amusement and disgust at the corner of her lips. Sensing his gaze on her, she looked back at him, and Thrawn signaled her to take up her station with his eyes.

“Lots of old people have ugly hair,” said the Chiss girl, still in that same somber tone. The other girls nodded in easy agreement. “It’s not your fault.”

“Yes, thank you,” Thrawn said, inclining his head. He tracked Faro as she walked away; with a little luck, she would assume this conversation was deadly serious and private by nature, and would never ask him what the girls had said. When she’d finally turned away, engaging Lieutenant Tully in conversation, Thrawn let his attention drift back to the girls.

The Empire, and the Republic before it, had strict rules regulating child labor, though naturally there were regions on nearly every Imperial world where these laws were disregarded, sometimes openly. Even on these worlds, Thrawn had found, the general populace looked down on child labor as a moral issue related to a notion of innate childhood innocence.

This was not a popular ideal on Csilla. Children, like adults, were expected to find low-paying work in addition to their studies; orphans of every age were expected to care for themselves and one another. Parental dependence was slim, especially in children with siblings or young cousins.

But it wasn’t by nature a desolate form of childhood. Working children still played and still had families to rely on for both comfort and social education; the only childhood profession which brought with it an edge of hardship was, unluckily, _ozyly-esehembo_. The children before him had likely been taken from their families shortly after infancy; it was unlikely they’d spent more than a week on Csilla in the years since.

When their tenuous connection to the Force inevitably faded, _ozyly-esehembo_ were rarely returned to their families. They were dropped unceremoniously at the nearest spaceport on Csilla, expected to fend for themselves. An ordinary Chiss child of twelve cycles could reasonably be expected to own her own small flat, to have completed all mandatory levels of schooling, to have learned a trade, and to be fully independent from her parents. An _ozyly-esehembo_ of the same age would have spent her entire life aboard a ship, isolated from the social customs of planet-side Chiss, with no education, with no trade except that which she could no longer access, and with no siblings or cousins on which she could rely.

Thrawn, as a child, had been fortunate in many ways. He’d learned how to read before being taken shipside; he’d had access to a wide array of datacards from which he could cobble together an education of sorts, and — most importantly — he’d been taken aboard a military ship rather than a commercial trader, with a Captain who’d listened seriously to his petition to become a cadet when his Force-sensitivity inevitably faded away.

These children didn’t share his fortune, but they were adequately quick learners. They’d taken quickly to lessons in both Basic and Sy Bisti, and the eldest child had even picked up a little of the trade language on her own by eavesdropping on adults. They remembered common planetside rituals and ceremonies well enough to fake their way through, and responded naturally to all of Thrawn’s corrections.

Most importantly, they’d recovered gracefully from the trauma of kidnapping. They followed orders better than the average Chiss child, but otherwise, they were emotionally indistinguishable from their planetside peers. If they were released from service as _ozyly-esehembo_ , Thrawn had no doubt they would reintegrate seamlessly into society.

And if they weren’t released, perhaps he could put in a word for them with Admiral Ar’alani. Already, they were mimicking his military bearing, and three of them had taken to calling him by his rank. The rest were making a concerted effort to use terms of respect more or less equivalent to the Basic “sir,” and none of these were habits Thrawn had guided them into.

They would make good cadets.

* * *

The shuttle which came for the Chiss girls was unlike anything Faro had ever seen; there was a fluid, artistic twist to the hull that seemed to her like a softer version of the antique landspeeders she’d lusted over as a child. She’d collected stacks of datacards stuffed with holos of those landspeeders, each of them lovingly restored, all sharp edges and retro flair. But none of them had been as sleek and beautiful as this ship.

There were no soldiers aboard to greet the girls; a quick glance inside showed Faro cool, translucent walls underlaid with a brilliant and inscrutable light display, but there was no sign of any other Chiss.

She sent a questioning glance toward Thrawn; he didn’t acknowledge it, instead walking aboard the shuttle ahead of the girls with his typical easy confidence. Faro followed closely behind him, disoriented by the shifting colors on the walls.

Silently, Thrawn inspected the shuttle, testing the harnesses on each seat. Seemingly satisfied, he clasped his hands behind his back and leaned over the compact control station -- the arrangement of flat controls was completely foreign to Faro. It was like the screen of her datapad -- no buttons, no levers, no dials. After a moment of quiet, studious examination, Thrawn glanced over and favored her with a small, wistful smile.

“It’s unfamiliar to me, too,” he assured her. “When I left, Chiss technicians were reverse-engineering our first droid. It seems the innovations haven’t stopped since then.”

Faro processed that a moment, suddenly unsure if her count on Thrawn’s years in exile was correct. Surely any advanced society would have had droids twenty years ago; even the poorest Outer Rim worlds had that technology. She looked back at the compact passageway behind him, the walls still covered in that dazzling array of light.

“Are those new, too, sir?” she asked. Thrawn followed her gaze and smiled again, just slightly.

“Those are ancient,” he said. “They’re typically used for communication, but the children won’t know how to read them. Right now, they’re configured to promote a sense of tranquility and comfort.”

Faro stared at the walls a little while longer, trying to figure out how anyone could possibly ‘read’ anything in the ever-shifting wash of color. Thrawn stepped around her carefully, bringing himself back into sight of the seven girls lingering nervously at the shuttle entrance.

“Come in,” he said, clearly and loudly, in Basic. Faro tried not to jump when the girls immediately obeyed, each of them stepping hesitantly into the shuttle. Thrawn indicated the seats tucked away near the control station.

“Sit, please,” he said in that same careful tone. The older girls clambered obediently into their seats; Thrawn swept up the youngest and perched her in between two others, adjusting her harness for her. He watched the other girls arrange their own harnesses, helping them with the buckles when necessary.

The next few words he spoke to them were not in Basic, but also not, Faro suspected, in Cheunh. He spoke at a slow pace, the words more clearly defined than when he spoke in Cheunh, and the girls listened raptly to everything he said.

Then, abruptly, Thrawn switched to Basic again. “Repeat, please,” he said. Carefully, the girls echoed the entire sentence back at him; they tripped simultaneously over a long word in the middle, and Thrawn patiently pronounced it for them again, until each of them had it right.

He had just switched to Cheunh for what seemed like a refresher course in Chiss greetings when a light flashed on the control board. Faro stepped back, giving Thrawn access to the board just as a high-quality holo fizzled into life, taking up nearly every inch of the viewscreen.

A Chiss woman stared out at them, her face hard. Like Thrawn, she wore a pristine white uniform, though the small array of colorful plastisteel on the left side was entirely unfamiliar to Faro.

“Mitth’raw’nuruodo,” the woman said, her voice frosty. Faro stepped farther back, out of sight of the holo. She crossed her fingers in the vague, futile hope that whatever conversation this woman and the Grand Admiral had would be in Basic.

It wasn’t. Thrawn spoke to her in Cheunh, his tone formal and depressingly reminiscent of the many military awards ceremonies Faro had attended over the years. He punctuated his last sentence with a light bow, and Faro turned her eyes toward the woman on the holo, waiting for her to continue the greeting ritual.

The woman only stared at Thrawn silently for a moment, her lips drawn down in a frown. Thrawn seemed to take it in stride; he straightened and threw a glance over his shoulder at the girls, who were watching intently. When he nodded at them, they launched into the Sy Bisti sentence he’d been practicing with them just a moment before.

There was something horribly charming about a group of children stumbling their way through a memorized greeting. Their voices chimed against each other, loud and enthusiastic, and when Faro sneaked another glance at the admiral on the holo, the Chiss woman’s face had softened, just a bit. Almost reluctantly, Faro thought.

She could tell that the ensuing conversation was stiff and awkward, even with the language barrier. The female admiral stayed mostly silent, radiating disapproval through the holo; Thrawn, who was more than accustomed to authoritative disapproval, didn’t bat an eye. He gave what seemed to Faro like a very calm, persuasive speech

The female admiral seemed less impressed than Faro. Her eyes flickered from Thrawn to the seven Chiss girls, still strapped into their seats.

And then, startling Faro all over again, the admiral spoke.

In lightly-accented Basic.

As Faro was beginning to think all Chiss could secretly do.

“ _Ozyly-esehembo_ do not _reintegrate_ with society, Grand Admiral,” said the Chiss woman, with what Faro felt was an unfair amount of sarcasm on ‘Grand Admiral.’

Thrawn’s eyes flickered rather inexplicably toward Faro. When he responded, it was still in Cheunh, his voice low and reasonable.

“The children do not need to hear this conversation,” said the Chiss woman firmly. “We will continue to speak in Basic, Grand Admiral.”

Thrawn inclined his head. “You’ve taken cadets from the ranks of _ozyly-esehembo_ before, Admiral,” he said in the same mild, reasonable tone from before. “Some of them have made good names for themselves on Csilla.”

“But most,” said the admiral, “have exited the Fleet in shame.”

“The successes speak louder than the failures,” said Thrawn with a confidence Faro wasn’t sure he felt. “And their lives are more important than any minor military infractions. More than one of those cadets would have frozen to death in their first planetside winter.”

“You would say that,” said the admiral drily. “No military infraction is minor, Mitth’raw’nuruodo.”

“Grand Admiral Mitth’raw’nuruodo,” said Thrawn, correcting her with uncharacteristic stiffness. The Chiss woman’s expression flickered, settling eventually into something akin to amusement.

“I’m not unsympathetic to you, Grand Admiral,” she said, more gently than before. “Nor to the children. I’m only thinking of the Ruling Families. I seem to recall an _ozyly-esehembo_ cadet who rose so quickly through the ranks that he was adopted as Trial-born.”

Thrawn said nothing; his face was carefully blank.

“That _cadet_ ,” said Admiral Ar’alani, “has spent the last twenty years in total exile, as you may recall.”

Thrawn didn’t even twitch. For a long moment, Ar’alani only studied him, perhaps searching for some microscopic reaction Faro couldn’t see.

Then, just as swiftly as they’d switched to Basic, they were back to Cheunh again. Ar’alani said something brief and clipped, and Thrawn visibly relaxed, seeming almost to sag in relief. He exchanged a few more words with Admiral Ar’alani — an abbreviated farewell ceremony, Faro guessed — and the next thing Faro knew, the holo was gone.

Thrawn’s farewell to the Chiss girls was brief as well, by necessity; the shuttle engine was humming, the control panels blinking, the floors now flaring with the same colorful lights as the walls. As quickly as he could, Thrawn went to each girl in turn, all seven of them taking the time to grasp his right arm in the strange Chiss handshake Faro had seen from them the day before.

She and Thrawn were at the door, their backs turned on the children, when one of the girls spoke.

“May warrior’s fortune to smile on your efforts,” said the tallest girl. Her accent was thick and her grammar was mangled, but she was watching Thrawn intently from her seat, straining against the harness as she waited for his response.

And then they were out of the shuttle, the doors rattling closed behind them.

And then the shuttle was gone.

* * *

There was nothing to see outside the viewport but empty space; the shuttle was long gone, leaving no hint of its existence behind.

Still, Grand Admiral Thrawn studied the stars, as if he could see a trail left by the shuttle that no one else could see.

The bridge was down to a skeleton crew, with the few officers left doing their utmost to ignore Thrawn’s presence at the viewport. The night cycle had just begun, and the ship was nearly silent.

Last night, there had been eight Chiss onboard the _Chimaera_. Now, there was only one.

Faro crossed the bridge silently, taking her place at the Grand Admiral’s side. He didn’t even glance her way; his lips were compressed in a tight line, his eyes set firmly on the empty space before them.

“I’m sure they made it, sir,” Faro said softly. Thrawn’s eyes slid closed; when they opened again, they seemed a little dimmer than before.

“I’ve no doubt they did, Commodore.” Suddenly, he seemed fatigued, barely capable of holding his military bearing together. “The youngest will be shunted off to another ship,” he said, his voice heavy and tinged with a sadness Faro had never heard from him before. “Admiral Ar’alani will see that the others are considered for military training, but the youngest will have no choice.”

“You’re sure?” Faro asked. But of course he was sure, or he wouldn’t have said anything.

“I miscalculated,” Thrawn said, his eyes dark. “It would have been better to focus solely on the older children, to ensure each of them received a place in basic training. As it stands, none of them are guaranteed admission.”

“Everyone makes miscalculations, sir,” said Faro. The words sounded hollow to her own ears.

“I allowed my judgment to become clouded,” Thrawn said. “And because of that…”

He never finished the sentence. When Faro glanced over at him, his face was working, though she couldn’t tell whether he was trying to hold back an uncharacteristic burst of anger or tears. Before she could figure it out, he’d turned his face away entirely, sweeping past with a barely-whispered, “Excuse me, Commodore.”

She watched the other officers as Thrawn exited the bridge, trying to tell from their faces whether she ought to follow. But the officers were well-trained; none of them stared at the Grand Admiral as he left, and none of their expressions gave anything away.

Eventually, she let go of the urge to follow him. Thrawn had been dealing with his exile for twenty years. Whatever he was feeling, he could manage it just fine without her.

And besides, it was the end of her shift.


End file.
